To Protect
by MirrorMarch
Summary: Grave will always be there to protect Mika, even when it's only from nightmares. Pure fluff. Rated T for blood.


**A/N: **

***crawls out of writer's block hole***

***looks around in confusion***

**How the heck did I end up in _this _fandom of all places!?**

**This felt good to write, though. After 5 or 6 months of an existential writing crisis, I have returned to feed you all this self-indulgent fluff! Enjoy, all you people of this small fandom!**

**To Protect**

**.**

"_Mom. Mommy, don't go. Please, Mommy. I don't know what to do! Don't go away… Don't go… Mom…"_

_ How many times had she repeated those words? How many times had she seen this—this scene that played over and over in her head? Her mother stood outside as the snow began to fall, a gun in her hand, surrounded by strange men in pressed suits—impeccable in their murderous intent. __The car drove further away each passing second—house, Mom, those men fading into a frozen second, framed by the rectangular view out the back window. __She kept screaming, begging her mother to run, to come back to her. She knew. Somehow she knew what those men would do. How was she so sure? It didn't make sense, but she _knew. _They were there for Mom. They were there to end her life._

_ She tugged at the seat belt Mr. Tokiyoka had strapped her into, but it wouldn't budge. It was locked, and the car still didn't slow. She was powerless, crying uselessly as the moment she knew would come played out in front of her out of that back window through the snow. It was distant, a silent sight at the end of the driveway now, but she saw her mother fall. She saw her body go limp, the gun in her hand drop to the ground, her shimmering, golden hair whisking about her face as she fell. __Her descent looked so slow, so gentle, like an autumn leaf floating softly to the earth. _

_And then the shot that had felled her rang out, __sound __delayed over the distance, and the spell was broken in a rush of shock, grief, and blood. _

_The view through the window was red now, like the car had been coated in paint… Except that it wasn't something so innocent as paint. It dripped, deep red and warm, down the glass, fogging her view as it steamed over the ice. __She heard something _thunk _down on the top of the car, and watched with the taste of bile in her mouth as something slick and pinkish started to slide slowly down the back of the car. __It was like… Like those illustrations of the inside of a human she'd seen in school. __All those pieces that made the body work: stomach, heart, liver, lungs. _

_She slammed a hand over her mouth and jerked around, squeaking out pitifully, "Mr. Tokiyoka?" _

_ He was there. He was in the driver's seat. He could wash that off. He could get rid of the blood, the viscera, all those gruesome reminders of the mother she didn't bury. __He could…_

_The butler __turned__, __and her horror only grew as she saw his face. His good, kind __features__ w__ere__ gone, replaced by a bloody mass. His brain oozed out of his cracked and protruding skull__, __his monocle a cobweb of hair fractures over his eyeless socket, the ball hanging out on an unresponsive optic nerve._

_His body slumped forward, his mutilated face leaning in to her, closer, closer, his blood dripping onto her clothes and skin, that horrid eye leaking like a yolk from its shell to her lap—_

A hand grasped her shoulder.

Mika sat up with a gasp, inhaling through a throat that felt as raw and gritty as sandpaper as she struck blindly at the owner of that hand. Was it him? She'd never buried her butler, had she? He was here for her now, reaching out to pull her into death with him.

"Let go!" she shrieked, screwing her eyes shut as tears flowed past her lids. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! Please, let go!"

She had to get away from that thing. She didn't want to open her eyes, she didn't want to see her butler, her mother watching her with dead faces—

"Mika."

A voice spoke her name, quiet, calm, and deep. The blind panic left, and she opened her eyes in slow disbelief, hardly daring to hope that the dream had faded. No. It was alright. She looked up at the huge form of Grave leaning over her, his gentle face and solemn eye regarding her in concern. His hand was on her shoulder, grounding her to the waking world.

"Grave?" she whimpered, disoriented, confused. "What happened? I thought… I thought…"

Grave shook his head to cut off her words and ruffled her hair in his slow, monotonous way.

"Dreaming," he replied.

"Dreaming?" she repeated softly, testing the word in her mouth.

Grave nodded, his hand still resting on her head.

"That's right," she agreed, letting reality settle in. "I was just… I was only dream-" she cut off with a choke. Only dreaming? _Just a dream?_ It had seemed so much more than that. The sensations had been so real. She'd _seen _everything. The way her mom died, the blood on the car, Mr. Tokiyoka…

Her hand went to her mouth, a dry heave turning into a sob as the horror of her dream—her _nightmare—_swept over her, the trauma of what she'd just seen, real or not, making her shake with a cold that seemed to emanate out of her chest, consuming her bones and causing goosebumps to prickle along her skin.

That hadn't just been a dream. She couldn't say it was "just a dream." That had been real, that had been real, _that had been real._

"Mika?" Grave's voice called her again, sounding more urgent now, and she dipped her head to hide her tears from him. She didn't want anyone to worry, not over something as stupid as a bad dream. That's all it had been, after all, she reminded herself. Not real. Just a bad dream.

"I-it's okay, Grave. I'm fine," she lied, wrapping her free arm around herself to hold in the feeble warmth from the air around her. "You're right. It was just a b-bad dream."

She kept her eyes away from him, locked on the edge of the couch. She'd troubled him with something so silly that he'd had to come and wake her up from some stupid nightmare. He'd already saved her life so many times, she wasn't going to burden him with this. She was okay. He shouldn't have been up anyway. He should have been recovering from his last fight, resting in that comatose state in his chair while the doctor's machines pumped life back into him. He shouldn't be here, all because he'd had to wake her up from a nightmare.

Grave's hand left her head, and for a moment she thought, hoped, dreaded that he believed her, that he would leave. A jolt of strange loneliness and a curl of fear lurched in her gut, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep back another sob at the overwhelming sensation. But then she felt his hand against her face, his large palm cupping the side of her head and gently turning it so she was forced to look at him.

He didn't say anything, but he brought his other hand up to brush his fingertips against her cheek, using his thumb to wipe her tears away. His skin was rough, and strangely… warm for one who had been Necrolized.

"Not bad dreams," he whispered, shaking his head, "bad _memories._"

The dam broke. Mika shrank, her shoulders beginning to shake with unsupressed sobs as her breath started to come in hitching gasps. Why couldn't she keep it together? Why did she fall apart over a few words? She tried to swallow her horror and sorrow back down, but her body wouldn't let her, rebelling and letting Grave see her weakness. One little reminder of the images her mind had conjured up in her sleep, and she was left bawling like a baby over a _dream_.

"M'sorry," she hiccuped, apologizing for her sorry self, for all the inconveniences she'd caused. "M'sorry… I-I didn't… I'm s-sorry, Gr-Grave…"

She pulled away from his gentle touch and buried her face in her hands, trying to cover her tears and all the petty fear she knew showed in her eyes.

"I'm… s-sorry…" she repeated, curling her legs into her chest like a snail clamming up in its shell.

Her sobs and parroted apologies were the only sound for a moment, then there was the creak of the old couch springs and the rustle of fabric as Grave moved, and Mika's body was suddenly enveloped in warmth as she was lifted gently into his lap.

Her sobs stilled in a moment of shock. Grave pulled her close, pressing her against his chest as his huge arms went around her, completely covering her body in a crushing hug while he rested his chin on the top of her head. In the space of a few seconds, Mika was wrapped in the sheltering fold of his arms, shielded totally from the outside world as he carefully brought the loose ends of his coat around her like a blanket.

"Don't apologize," he said, and Mika could hear the rumble in his chest as he spoke and feel the vibrations of his voice. "Memories… aren't something to feel ashamed of. Neither are dreams. You don't have to apologize."

A fresh batch of tears washed over her, but they weren't ones of fear this time. It was relief, gratitude, a soft feeling she couldn't identify that drove her to collapse completely into Grave, gripping his shirt with trembling fingers as the horror rushed out of her. She was safe. Safer than she'd ever felt before. Her friend's arms had become an impenetrable fortress, cradling her firmly, and yet so gingerly, like she was a piece of porcelain he didn't want to drop. She had never imagined that security like this existed, and she relaxed completely into him, letting his warm smell and the heat coming off his body wash over her.

She let herself cry. She sobbed into his chest, allowing herself to shake, to cling to him, melt against him as she released all her fear, grief, and regret.

Grave only held her, quiet as always, rubbing a hand over her spine in a soothing rhythm, gently easing the muscles in her back while she hiccuped with shuddering breaths into his chest.

He was so warm… She hadn't thought he could be so warm, Necrolized as he was. It was like she was leaning up against a space heater, the temperature trapped by the blanket of his coat and that comforting, ever-present press of his arms supporting her body.

Her sobs began to die away, then faded to even breaths, but Grave didn't let her go. He held her against him as the warmth took its effect and the comfort of the soft rising and falling of his chest and the sluggish thumping of his heartlulled her away into sleep—a peaceful sleep that was free of all dreams.


End file.
